Gravity Fallen
by sunny123781
Summary: What if Grunkle Stan didn't make it when the portal collapsed? The Author is revealed to be Stanley Pines, Stanford's twin brother. Stan has put in so much effort for the portal to work, Mabel can't shut it down now. It works, everything is working out, except there's a single flaw in his plan...


Static erupted into the already soaring room- literally soaring. The anomalies had warped the balance of gravity beyond normal comprehension and the whirling vortex of doom that was posted behind Mabel seemed to intensify. The countdown timer was the only thing properly doing its job, the woman's unnervingly calm voice only speeding up the anxiety of the situation.

"_Ten... Nine..._"

Bolts of electricity sprung from the colorful whirlpool of danger, the portal was working and soon it would destroy the world. Tubes of power were collecting the electric energy and Mabel was floating at the center of it, dangerously close to the portal. Pebbles and long stands of debris floated upward, finally relieved from their earthly bounds, while the rest of the group- Dipper, Stan, and Soos, were held down, unable to move, against the back wall; forced to watch it all, helplessly.

Mabel's hand drew close to the shutdown button, the only downward motion in the town. Words and pleas struck her from both sides and she couldn't help but pay attention to their echoes.

_You really think I'm a bad guy? _

_He's lying! Shut it down now! _

_Mabel please!_

She lifted her chin, dark eyes darting to the back wall, willing them to look upon her Grunkle Stan for what very well may be the last time. He's pleading, begging, an emotion she had never witnessed coming from her grunkle before. Her grunkle, who was a cheap conman, keeping secrets and _lying_ to her no doubt. But in this moment of utter reality Mabel knew she was looking at who her grunkle really was: genuine.

"Grunkle Stan..." she spoke over the whirling and the countdown, her voice shaking with uncertainty.

"_Six... Five..._"

Her small hand floated cautiously above the single button that could save them all and simultaneously destroy everything her grunkle had been working for.

And in a moment that changed everything, her palm rose and she released the tension in her body, floating away with the missing force of gravity.

"...I trust you."

Her family watched as she was carried directly in front of the portal, darkness and stars shinning precariously from beyond the swirling dish of colors, her long hair reaching even further than her arms were.

Everything grew louder and at the peak of the momentum a single voice shouted above it all, angry and hurt.

"Mabel, are you crazy!"

Dipper tried to stand as he was holding onto the back wall, nearly thrusting himself forward in order to make the decision that his sister was too endearing to make. The loose gravity of the room brushed his bangs up enough to show the telltale birthmark that gave him the name he was called to this day. Shocked and disappointed he continued yelling at his twin.

"We're all gonna-"

"_One..._"

And as if the room wasn't loud enough, an explosion of light broke out of the portal swallowing the front of the room with white-hot energy, innocent Mabel being the first to be taken within it.

The boys in the back of the room screamed in near unison, each quickly following after Mabel, the light taking them out of the feasible realm they had always known and forcing them to witness the unobstructed power of the machine.

They are not the only ones affected as the entire Mystery Shack broke away from its foundation, loose trees in the forest following its lead, and the security of the rest of the town being thrown up in the air.

Everything was lost to the light. All consciousness fades to darkness and the bodies of those found at ground zero floated aimlessly... before being thrown precariously to the ground as soon as the gravity fell.

Regaining recognition, Dipper lands on his knees, rubbing his head in the process and scowling toward the portal. He should have been long dead, they all should've been. They weren't, but none of this would have happened in the first place if his sister would have trusted him instead of the conman they'd been played by.

When the final anomaly of the machine wears itself out it is evident that it was nearly destroyed in the process. Along with Stan, Soos, and Mabel falling, the structure and electrified tubes on either side of it had fallen, crushed and destroyed by the reinstated gravity. But even so, the center of the inverted triangle, what had housed the dangerous portal, was still working, still spinning, though not as violently.

The window into space had closed away and transformed, the ring of colors outlining it, vanished. The portal had transfigured into a blue looking glass, first opaque but suddenly fading to reveal a new scenery just beyond its surface.

Not only does the new image appear to be reminiscent of the broken wasteland before Dipper and Mabel- the only conscious ones standing, but a figure waded toward the entrance of their world.

Slowly but meticulously, a form walked closer, threatening to break through the so-far untouched portal. But like everything else in this town, the stagnant dream was shattered.

Sparks of breaking electrical wire and loose debris snapped and fell away, but the only object that did not trip uselessly and broken was the figure that waded through the portal itself as if it was the ordinary door it was constructed to pose as.

A mechanic, almost ethereal, humming spun from the wish-washy portal as the figure stepped through it, immediately to be recognized as a man.

He stood with his arms down, fists tight, ragged cape pulling on the wind current still being created by the portal, and posed at the base of the broken machine. There was something else, something on his back... what could it be?

There was a fog of dust that had been blown up by the final outburst of the countdown, the air thinning out just as the man jumped from his perch, walking across the room and avoiding the debris as if it had purposefully fallen out of his chosen path.

His footsteps echoed while everyone else stayed quiet, some by choice, others not having the luxury. He was walking _toward_ something, Dipper and Mabel only figuring that out when he stopped to pick it up.

Reaching his hand out, he splayed his fingers across the cover of it... It was the first journal, and his hand matched that of the traced golden one perfectly, six fingers and all. He stood up straight again, the object on his back now clearly seen as some sort of holstered gun, and opened the side of his dark trench coat, slipping the iconic maroon book into a well-worn slot.

"What?" Dipper shook his head, standing next to Mabel. "Who _is_ that?"

They both squinted, trying to get a good look at his face. The backlighting from the portal wasn't ideal and the room was dark enough as it was without the dark fabric that was no doubt covering the man's face. Even so, there was something unnaturally familiar about him, his outline perhaps, or the way he stood.

"The author of the journals?" Mabel gawked at her own premonition, both the twins unable to grasp the final conclusion they had been trying to find for half the summer.

The man reached his face, pulling away the goggles and the hood that concealed his identity. The mystery twins gawked and as the second-by-second realization dawned on them, the familiar face of their Grunkle Stan was found at the forefront of the mysterious man.

Somehow, younger... and wearing rounder glasses that had a single crack in them, the six-fingered author of the journals had to be none other than their Grunkle Stan's twin brother.

Soos finally having gotten up stood in line with Dipper and Mabel, each of them equally stunned and wide-eyed.

"Is this the part where one of us faints?" Mabel asked without much thought.

Soos, laughing, immediately replied: "Oh, I am _so_ on it dude," and then followed through with his proposition, falling backward onto a pile of wooden debris with an echoing _pu-hud_. Mabel remained unblinking while Dipper couldn't grasp the situation enough.

"Where's Ford?" the man demanded, looking down at the shocked twins. His brow furrowed as he mentioned the name and Dipper quickly realized that he was talking about Stan.

Dipper looked at his sister who was already looking behind her. With Soos knocked out he's no help to them, but there, clearly spotted in the back of the room, she found her grunkle sitting upright with his back against the wall and his leg spread out upon the floor. He must still be out of it from the response of the machine.

Without waiting for a signal or a plan she sprinted to the back of the room, her heart fluttering. So much had happened but at the root of it all she had trusted him.

Dipper casted a glance at the man who was undoubtedly the unmentioned twin of his grunkle and ushered over to his sporadic sister, except, she'd stopped moving. She's stopped and the room fell silent again, save for the trills of the machine still coughing up its final energies.

The machine was a way to reunite brothers, to bring the author of the journals back to Gravity Falls. It wasn't a doomsday device made to end the universe. Maybe Dipper should have put more trust into his grunkle after all.

When Dipper stood next to his sister he followed her wide, innocent gaze to meet the man they had spent all summer with. He was different now, there was something terribly off about the whole scene.

His glasses were cracked and fragmented, his head drooped low, but even through all the mayhem he had still kept his hat, though even that was wrecked. For the amount of time the twins stood there they realized in the back of their minds that he didn't move once... that he wouldn't move.

Mabel doesn't catch it because she's standing on the other side of him, but when Dipper notices a moist glint of blood trickling from the backside of his ear, he nearly collapses and he's glad Mabel doesn't notice it.

"Grunkle Stan?" she asked carefully, hardly moving her chin out of her pink sweater. There was no answer. Dipper knew there would never be.

He should have trusted him. He should have trusted his grunkle! Why didn't he believe him, why did he let himself get carried away in the twisted mysteries of the journal! He should have done... he shouldn't have done...

Dipper fell forward, tears no longer being held at bay, and even though he hoped his voice would be strong enough for Mabel, he couldn't force himself to that level of stability.

"Gruncle Stan?" he shouted- no, _pleaded_. Reaching out to his sullenly quiet grunkle he hoped for a reciprocated motion but he received none of the sort.

"Dipper?" Mabel questioned her brother's reaction, her voice shaking again, tears welling against her dark eyes. The static of portal on the other side of the room casted moving shadows upon the scene, making it seem as if Stan was fidgeting awake. Dipper, having had a light touch of his grunkle, knew that it was not the case.

This was when Mabel saw it. This was when she noticed the thin streaks of blood that stained the wall, running down in perfect alignment to match the head of her Grunkle Stan. He'd been still for too long. He'd been silent for too long. Mabel knew this was the end and even with the stubborn tears that refused to fall down her face she could not accept the fate that had been laid before her.

"Grunkle Stan get up," she told him. "Grunkle Stan, I trusted you, see? Your portal worked, I didn't stop it." Her words turned into the heart aching sound of pleas. "Get up and give me a victory hug," she said, cold tears running into her mouth and rubbing against the sides of her nose, dripping and soaking into the thick material of her already dirty sweater.

By now, the mysterious man accepted to be Stan's brother had sauntered over to the bodies in the back of the room. Slowly, hearing the sobs and the pleas, he understood what must have happened but he too would not accept what had inevitably been undone.

His shadow bled onto the body of his twin. After all these years... there he was. He had to have gone through all the trouble in the world to make the machine work, but at what cost dammit, at what cost!

The author took one look at his brother, one long look at the most protective brother who always believed in his crazy ideas, who always had his back, who had been the strong one through all the trouble he caused and just-

He turned his back to him, once again, but this time for a justified reason.

It shouldn't have happened this way... He should have listened to the others, he should have stopped making the machine and given up on it because without it his brother would still be alive. Stan never deserved this!

"You," Dipper spoke, rising to his feet, his voice thin and unsure. "You did this," he accused, trying to get a hold of himself. The author didn't turn around. "With... Without you and your stupid machine none of this would have happened!"

Mabel raised her head, turning to watch her brother yell at the long lost grunkle she never knew she had.

"Why are you here!" he screamed at him, hot tears burning the already hot cheeks of his face.

Stan's twin lifted his head, turning it sideways as to look at his young great nephew with a single eye, wide, and squinted, all the same.

He wished it was that easy. He wished the explanation was as simple as what Dipper was asking for, but it wasn't, and he couldn't bear to explain it all in the presence of his fallen brother.

There was an ominous click that shakes from the portal, grabbing the full attention of the three conscious participants. And before the author could give Dipper any consolation of an answer, he must complete what had been done.

"We have to close the portal," he instructed the young boy, sure that he knew enough about the portal to shut it down. If the doorway wasn't sealed the universe as they knew it might very well be lost.

And so without the conclusion that Dipper demanded the author hurried toward the rowdy portal, the boy following far behind him with efforts to watch, leaving Mabel to herself and the body of her dead grunkle.

She cried now, falling to her knees in pure agony, sobbing into the threads of her sweater. She fell looking at the slouched figure of the man she loved- still loved. She reached out to him as if expecting him to reach out to her and pull her into a hug, assuring her that everything would be alright. The hug never came and with every fallen tear more of her hope filtered away, taking along with it her usual happiness and the silly composure that made her Mabel Pines.

The only thing, the single moment that gave her enough spirit to continue on instead of collapsing under the crushing weight of her loss, under the event that was undoubtedly chosen by her hands, was the stark fact that the last act she shared with her Grunkle Stan was letting go of her doubt and giving him her trust.

"I trusted you, Grunkle Stan..." she whispered through sobs, leaning forward. "I always trusted you..."


End file.
